This analogy changed the game for me. This is a brain dump of the analogy broken down into a few areas.

• Business is a sport
  • Most people think of sports as “physical”. Business is a mental sport
  • Business is a team sport, you can’t play on your own
  • Basketball is about getting the ball in the enemy’s hoop. Business is about solving customer problems
    • The bigger the problems you solve, the more customers are willing to pay you for it
    • The more people that have such problem, the more customers you would have
• Score
  • The score in basketball is a count of how many times you got the ball through the hoop. The score in business is about how many times you solved a customer problem
  • The score is revenues and profits, exchanging your “solution” with the customer’s money
  • People pay you their hard earned money if you’re truly solving a big problem for them
  • The more uniquely you’re solving it, the higher people would be willing to pay your for it (high margin). The less differentiated your solution is from others, the less people would be willing to pay you for it (low margin commodity)
• Athletes
  • The best sports teams comprise of the best athletes and supporting teams (coaches, trainers, etc.)
  • Employees are athletes of business. Depending on the league, your business might have superstars, or laid back amateurs
  • The best athletes want to win badly, and do whatever it takes to do so
  • The best players play because they’re obsessed & in love with the game. Money is just the score; it’s not why they play. But it indicates winning, and they care about winning
• Positions
  • In football, there’s attack, defense, midfield, etc. In business, there’s marketing, operations, finance, etc
  • Each position in business comprises of a team. If you want your finance position to be world-class, you must have a world class leader and players under that leader
• Performance
  • You can measure the performance of a defender in basketball by how many shots they blocked. 9/10 is a good defender, probably
  • In the sport of business, there must be some measurement of performance as well for the athletes (aka KPIs; key performance indicators or OKRs; objectives & key results)
• Leagues
  • Every sport has its leagues. You can play in a semi-professional 5th league, or you can play in the Premier League or the NBA
  • Business also has leagues. League 1 has the biggest companies in the world (Apple, Nike, Porsche, etc)
  • At the bottom of the list, you have small businesses that are operator owned offering commoditized products & services
• Winners & Losers
  • The 2nd winner is the 1st loser; applies in sports and business equally
  • The sport of business has infinite divisions/sub-sports (industries/markets). If you’re selling sports shoes, you’re in competition with Nike. They are the winner, you are the underdog (for now, at least)
• Competition
  • How badly you want to win dictate how much you win
  • Business is the most competitive sport in the world. While you sleep, someone out there is trying to outcompete you
  • In physical sports, there are seasons, game times, and schedules. In business, it’s 24/7, all year long. It never stops
• Rules
  • In physical sports, there are associations that define the rules of the game. In business, there are no rules
  • The closest thing to rules are regulations that governments set up, but those often define the rules to play fairly, not the rules to win
• Olympics
  • Startups are the Olympics of business
  • Founders of startups embody elite athleticism that sets them apart. They find out what the ‘world record’ is, and take on whatever Goliath that came before them
• Team Spirit
  • Is everyone showing up on time for practice? Is everyone putting their 110%? If not, morale takes a hit, and team culture/spirit is hindered
  • Company culture is the equivalent for team spirit in sports
• Coach
  • In physical sports, the coach and supporting team are instrumental to winning. They have the birds eye view, and work with the players to improve their game
• Team of Teams
  • In basketball, you have 5 players. In football, you have 11 players. In business, you can have a million players (divided into smaller teams)
  • Unlike physical sports, business can have nested teams. The “defender” actually has a team of 5 defenders. Each of them has a team of 5 more defenders. Sometimes, each of those also has 5 more defenders. Each of them specialize in a specific type of defense

I’ll keep updating this every now and then.